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Insurance Blue's

I'am Trying To Find Some Affordable Insurance For My Welding
Buisness.but I'am Not Having Any Luck Either Everybody Is
Totally Out Of Line On Thier Prices Or It Does Not Include
Garage Keepers.i'am Between A Rock & A Hard Spot What Do You
Guy's Think.

Insurance is always high for a new business with no track record of being accident free,, or lawsuit free.

Each state's laws are different but there may be another option. Make yourself judgment proof and then do without. Once you become established insurance should become affordable and you can then run with the big dogs. Just be careful if you go this route, you don't want to have to explain to the wife and kids why they are living under a bridge. Good luck

Try asking your local business association or Chamber of Commerce about membership and their insurance programs.

I have a 8 year track record and never been sued, never had a work place accident, never had a customer injury.
I pay about $200 a month for my coverage thru Grange. But I had to put up lots of fire extinguishers, first aid kits, eye wash stations and a few other things that I can't remember at the moment.

Plus I had the local fire chief come over and gave me an inspection, which he passed me, but also gave me some suggestions to make things better. Plus a telephone within close reach is not a bad idea either.

Also your insurance carrier may ask if they can check your background and maybe your spouse's background. Most things don't really count after 2 to 3 years, but your agent may not tell you that. These checks are both credit and criminal checks. Being judgement proof means that you have a recent bankruptcy and having no property what so ever in your name. BUt you will never be able to get a SBA loan or a bank loan for your business.

Or your agent will just ask one or two questions and give you a great rate.

being judgment proof is having no assets in YOUR NAME. Then if you are sued and someone gets a judgment, you have nothing that can be sold to satisfy the judgment. That also means that you can never own anything in your name. Doctors used to put everything in their wife's name, not sure if they still do it.

Here in TX your house, motor vehicle, couple guns, horse, household goods, tools, wage garnishment, and some other stuff are exempt from judgments. Each state is different on the rules. i have a couple judgments against deadbeat renters and those judgments along with 50¢ won't even get me a cup of coffee in this state. TX is considered a debtor's state and I always seem to be the one that rents them a house.

Obviously, if you want to sleep well at nite it's better to have the insurance coverage. If you choose the "self insured" route you would be solely responsible for any claims made against you. If you do good work and customers are satisfied then the insurance thing should never be an issue. You will also lose a lot of work because you don't have the necessary insurance.

Insurance

Do you know there's an insurance policy available for every phase of building and launching a sattellite? The thing is that it's so expensive, nobody buys it. Think about it. Also, can you set up your buisiness as an LLC so nobody can get your house and personal stuff should they decide to sue you. Anybody have an LLC who can shed some light on this? I do not so don't take my advice as law but sometimes you gamble depending on what you have to loose.

Check with a business attorney on the LLC situation. You can be sued as well as the LLC in some states, as well as any one else involved in your company.

To create an LLC, you can buy the kit at any of the major office supply stores. It's easy fast and cheap, if it will work for you in your state. Plus you have to check on any situation that you may encounter that crosses state lines or deals with a foreign company or even just a foreigner.

There used to be some tricks that could be done with trusts but I believe the recent bankruptcy law changes may have cracked down on some of them. Google "asset protection" to get more info on this subject.

We had a thread something like this on the motorsports board last year . .

Insurance is needed for two reasons, one is to protect your assets, the other is you have a responsibility to properly compensate anybody you have injured or caused loss to through your business activities.

Somebody said something about "bonds" . . . well, a bond is simply to insure performance, or insure trust, I have to maintain a surety bond as a condition of my contractor's license. All it does is insure performance on my part for any contract I may enter. If the bonding company has to pay out on it, they can turn right around and bring action against me to collect what they paid.

And this talk about becoming "judgement proof" by transferring or hiding assets is to my mind gutless and irresponsible. Incorporating or creating an LLC is one thing, and something any prudent businessman should consider, it gives you some protection, but not complete protection, but going to the lengths of having no visible assets is just taking it too far.

The big problem starting out is almost any decent, highly rated insurance company is going to want to see three years of "loss runs" before they'll even consider writing you up. There are some "not so highly rated" companies that will do you, it's just a matter of finding them. Generally, they'll either charge more or offer less coverage, but at this point you don't have a lot of options.

I'd like to add a disclaimer here, also. Insurance is very much a state-regulated industry, things can be much different state-to-state, my experience is in California, what I said above may or may not be true everywhere.

The best suggestion I can offer is network with other businesses, not necessarily welding businesses, but customers, suppliers, your barber, contractors, etc. You want the name of the agent they deal with, not all agents are created equal, and some are much better on commercial policies than others. Just calling agencies won't do it, you just get the person who's not occupied right then, and that's probably not the right person anyway.